Thursday, October 1, 2009

Apron Strings

When my husband, Tony was a child, his mother was an obsessive cleaner. His house was always immaculate and hyper-organized. When he woke up in the morning, everything was sparkling clean and the table was set for breakfast. In short, everything was clean and neat and ordered for him with no effort required on his part.

To this day, when my mother-in-law comes to my house, the first thing she does is start cleaning. She’ll clean my kitchen, hand-washing each dish in scalding hot water. Then she sweeps and picks up. If I have laundry to fold, she starts to fold it. When we first got married and she visited, I would get insulted. Did she think I wasn’t a good housekeeper? Was she disgusted with the mess and dirt she saw? Did she think I wasn’t good enough for her son? Over time, I have come to accept it. This is just the way she is. Cleaning my house is actually her way of sharing, so now, I just relax and let her do it.

When we got married, Tony expected that I would act the same as his mom. “Maybe,” he might have reasoned to himself, “the reason she has never been a super cleaner before is that she wasn’t married yet. Now that we’re married, she will change.” In addition to tidying and scrubbing, he also expected me to make his doctor appointments for him, cook and serve him food even if he didn’t ask or said he wasn’t hungry, bake multiple pies and dozens of cookies to serve to friends or give as gifts at Christmas and send out Christmas cards to everyone he ever came in contact with, just like his mom used to do. Let me point out at this point that I am Jewish. I never did anything around Christmas time except light the menorah and eat potato latkes.

But forgetting for a moment the cultural and religious issues, the idea that I should be more like my mother-in-law has been the cause of lots of fights over the last 14 years of our marriage. Don’t get me wrong – we have a good marriage and we don’t fight that often. But when we do get into it, the problem usually centers on a variant of the same thing, which is “I’m not, nor will I ever be your mother.” The arguments have gotten less the longer we’ve been married. I have gotten better at cleaning, and he has gotten better at not complaining. Every once in a while, though, that little boy still comes out and reaches for his mother’s apron strings and finds that mama has left the building.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Good Morning, Sunshine!

Let me preface this post by saying that I am not a morning person by nature. People who are full of energy and perkiness first thing in the morning annoy me. In the dim recesses of memory from BK (before kids), I remember sleeping in until noon on a Sunday, and reading the New York Times in bed with my coffee and bagel until I felt like getting up. It all seems like a lovely dream now...

However, for the last 10 years or so, I have had to get up early to get my kids to school. Now, my body, like an old trail horse that’s done the same thing a million times, gets up no later than 6:30 AM, regardless of whether it is a school day or a weekend or a holiday or summer vacation. My children, though, have not had the same conditioning and mornings can require practically superhuman patience, energy and creativity to get them up and out on time.

My waking-kids-up-for-school strategy has morphed over time. With Danny, my oldest, I had admittedly unrealistic expectations. I thought that since he knew he had to be at preschool at a certain time and it was half an hour drive, he would naturally make sure to get up when he was supposed to. Ha! From the time he could talk, my husband and I called Danny The Negotiator. He milked the morning time for all it was worth, trading cuddle time, original improptu fictional stories, and promises of future treats for his cooperation. Once he had sealed the deal, he got up, no problem.

My next child, Mia, was a whole different story. A thermonuclear device could go off next to her head and she would snore, roll over and continue sleeping. When she was little, she would not wake up, no matter what I did. Frustrated, I would pick out her outfit and get her completely dressed while she remained blissfully, sound asleep. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, once I had her dressed, with socks and shoes and everything, she would wake up just enough to tear off everything that I had just put on her because she didn’t want to wear that today. I yelled a lot in those days, but it was with great restraint that I refrained from introducing my angelic toddler to some of the more colorful phrases in the English language.

Miriam, number three, followed in her brother’s footsteps. Although she usually had no trouble waking up, she used the situation to get maximum cuddle time. However, on those mornings after late night marathon gigglefests with Mia, with whom she shares a room, Miriam’s whines and screaming have been known to shatter glass and shake paintings off the walls several houses over. Once you have experienced this you will go to great lengths to ensure that you never have to endure a repeat performance.

That is when I became a stand up comedian. No, I have never performed my comedy act for any bigger audience than my two oldest daughters. But each morning, my show consists of improv comedy including making up songs with silly lyrics, joking, tickling, sarcasm, and various animal noises (don’t ask). Each girl has been at various times a princess (Mia is always Sleeping Beauty for obvious reasons), a kitten, a superhero, a dog, a meerkat, or a bear (Mia again because she hibernates. “It’s spring, little bear!” I shout at her and sometimes she wakes up enough to smile.). I walk my fingers all over Miriam as she is sleeping and they become the character of Little Man, whom she will usually wake up to interact with. When she doesn’t wake up right away, Little Man gets peeved and uses his little foot to kick her in the nose.

Mia still will sleep until she only has ten minutes left before she has to leave, but so far, they have made the bus every time this school year except once (in the interest of full disclosure, I have had to drive them to the bus stop several times to make sure they didn’t miss it).

Sometimes my morning routine stretches my powers of creativity and sometimes it stretches the limits of my patience, but overall, I find that it is much better to start the day with love and silliness than with frustration and yelling. In fact, most days, I actually look forward to getting up and doing my thing. So, good morning, my little rays of sunshine! You are as good a reason as any to get up in the morning.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Hotel Mentality

My husband, Tony travels. A lot. In a typical month, he spends about 2 and a half weeks out of town, much of which spans over weekends since he travels internationally and coming home for weekends just isn’t an option. All this traveling means that he spends a lot of time in hotels. When he is not traveling, he works from home since his company’s office is in Maryland and we live in Florida (which also means he needs to fly up there whenever he needs to meet face to face with anyone in the company).

Despite the fact that he misses me and the kids and calls often, there is one ray of sunshine in the traveling life for him. It’s the hotels. Hotels are always clean, with daily maid service. No one else’s stuff has been left around, so he can arrange his stuff as he likes. There are no little curious hands to snatch his IPhone and leave it on the floor near the bed or to spray his shaving cream on the bathroom mirror. There is no refrigerator that can be left open or cartons of orange juice that are spilled on the ground and left to dry to a tacky mess. There are no little scientists trying to grow penicillin in dishes of neglected food smuggled into their rooms. There is also a certain silence, one without earsplitting screams of “So and so hurt me!” or a sullen, “Why do I have to do it?”

Here’s the problem. Tony comes home from his travels and brings the hotel mentality with him. He starts out eager to see us and hugs and kisses everyone. Once the excitement wears off, he looks around and oftentimes, that is when the hotel mentality kicks in. Total bewilderment at the backpacks carelessly tossed by the front door. Consternation at the sloppily done chores. Disbelief at the baskets of clean laundry waiting to be folded and put away. Shock at the decibel level of kids playing or fighting. “Where is my ordered, quiet world, where some invisible angel turns down my sheet and leaves a small chocolate?” he must wonder.

After a long trip, it takes him about two or three days to adjust to the real reality. Life is messy. Kids are loud. We don’t have a full time maid (or any maid, for that matter). And it’s all OK.

"Now, for heaven's sake," I tell him, "take some vacation time and take me to a hotel!"

Crazy Kid Comments 2

Me to kid: Don’t walk around with a blanket over your face. Remember the last time you did that, you bumped into the garbage can and hurt your nose.

Crazy Kid Comments 1

One of the little mentioned reasons to have kids is for comic relief. For years, my mom has been hearing me say bizarre things to my kids, things my younger, pre-kid self could never imagine saying to another human being. After she catches her breath after laughing her head off, she has always said, "You've got to write that down!" So this little snippet is the result. Each of these "Crazy Kid Comments" are actual things that either I have said to my kids or I've heard my kids say to each other. There are probably hundreds I have forgotten, from before I started actually writing them down, so these are all fairly recent. Keep an eye out for more gems...

Kid: Where are we going?
Me: We’re going to Miami.
Kid: I want to go to Your-ami!